Mankind's Fall: The Usurper's Plague
by Obsidainsoul4
Summary: Mankind has been cast from its throne at the top of the food chain. Now with Humanity at the edge of extinction, life has turned into a fight for survival. But not all the cards have been laid on the table as the plague has new things to throw at the remains of mankind. It is up to the Vanguard to keep the remaining settlements alive as new beasts crawl from the woodwork.


p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Tw Cen MT',sans-serif;"The alarms blared down the corridors of the lab, only to be met by a cacophony of screams, as the scientists ran from one of their style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanBlood and drool dribbled down his face and onto his white lab coat, as he ran towards the screaming style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanHe had already ripped the throat from one of the armed guards who had tried to stop him, but his belly was still gripped in the painful spasms of hunger as he crouched down and began to bound towards the running style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanA man in ballistic armor rounded the corner of the T shaped hall and brought his gun to style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanWithin seconds, a volley of bullets tore into the softer musculature of the crouched man's body, but this did nothing to stop style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanWith a great leap, the infected man slammed head long into the body of the armored guard, breaking bones and sending him crashing through the glass and into the testing style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanThe same room that held the rats the man had once worked with, studying a new species of hydra that was discovered in the Arctic earlier that style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanThis was also the place he had been bitten by one of the mice that were infected with the parasitic style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Tw Cen MT',sans-serif;"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /spanThe guards broken body crashed through the cages and spilt their valuable contents style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanDozens of mice scurried and ran away from the rain of glass and metal. span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanThey ran for every dark corner of the room and out into the open halls. span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanThey searched until some of them came across a small hole that lead to the outside world. While the mice enjoyed the freedom, span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanthe scientists were trapped by the lock-down protocol that had been activated to protect the outside world in case of an outbreak of a style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanTheir screams and pounding on the large heavy doors that separated them from the outside, fell on deaf ears, soon he would find style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanSome locked themselves away after their encounter with him, some suffered from scratches. Some had blood spilt on them while trying to help save the people attacked by the deranged style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanLittle did they know, their kind actions would seal their fate, another soul bound to the parasite. span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Tw Cen MT',sans-serif;"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /spanFour days later, a high priority team was sent into the research base located in the rural lands of style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanOnly to be met with claws and teeth of the infected scientists waiting in the dark corners of the style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanWithin the hour, the area was firebombed to control the outbreak of the style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanBut from a far-off distance, several pair of dark beady eyes watch the fires burn in the style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanWithin hours the government has the mess placed under the rug as a gas-line explosion. span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Tw Cen MT',sans-serif;"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /spanTwo weeks after the destruction of the lab, a mouse has found its way into one of the tanks of a bottling style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanThere it died and contaminated the water that is being pumped into the style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanAround the same time, another mouse had found its way onto a trading ship heading for the European style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanEverywhere it congregated with its kin, it spread the eggs of the Hydra to the others around style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanIn time the parasite began to drive it to more violent tendencies. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Tw Cen MT',sans-serif;"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /spanOne month after the events of the lab, outbreaks began to pop up across the world. span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanThe governments of different countries tried to quickly squash the outbreaks, but they soon found that their own were starting to be affected by the style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanBy the time they realized it was in the water, most of the world had already fallen to the style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanDuring the second month after the lab incident, the second stagers began to appear and made the fight even style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanWithin the next month, humanity was reduced to about 45 million style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanspan style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanWith the bleakness of the outcome, the new world government declared all cities unsafe for humans and ordered the military to pull back and save as many civilians as possible. span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanThey soon went silent after that and have been so ever since./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Tw Cen MT',sans-serif;"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /spanAfter the fall of the new world government, each military compound came under the lead of the highest-ranking military officer at the style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanBases soon became small towns meant to keep the human race safe and going but it's a hard road that humanity now style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanspan style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanIts been three years since man fell from the throne known as the apex style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanWith the infected out there now and medicine no longer being produced it is up to the brave men and women who serve in the Vanguard to get the supplies that can't be made in the settlements style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanspan style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanWhen the gauntlet is cast down, the Vanguard will be the ones to pick it up and accept the style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanAt the forefront of these groups is team Hades. span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanA four man team who have dived into the deepest parts of the black zones and have come back alive. They may be mankind's last hope in this growing darkness. span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p 


End file.
